A True, Down-to-Earth Tale o f Human Relations
By Rev. John A. Van Dyke
F OURTEEN YEARS ago, I carried my Alice over the two - foot wide bridge which linked my property with Al’s sixty acres, under the shade of an ancient oak. A1 had been married the year before. We were good friends from our earliest memory. On these adjoining farms our fathers and mothers lived, and worked, and saved. The two farms were inherited from our grandparents. From year to year the two families were blessed in • such a neighborliness as is seldom known. That two-foot wide footbridge spoke of co-operation, co-ordination, and neigh borly love. When a blessing came to one family, there was rejoicing on the other side. If one family was in need or trou ble, comfort and assistance came quickly from over the creek. The people of the town were aware of this wonderful harmony. We went to church together, picnics, sales, and the polls to vote for our candidates. Our children played together, and de fended each other. It was wonderful. Suddenly the bridge wasn’t there any more. It was kapoot as our Dutch neigh bors sadly expressed it. For the Devil came between A1 and me. One morning Al, with a very red face, brought a sharp ax and hewed the bridge to pieces. Then he cast the pieces into the fire. We didn’t speak to them any more. They never hollered to us across the creek. The children were forbidden to play with each other. Even our church life was spoiled. If I, a deacon, passed the plate, Al and his family failed to place in it their “ tithes and offerings” , as our pastor announced the collection. It hurt us deeply— this trouble. At family worship, we couldn’t read or say the Lord’s Prayer because it speaks of for giving one another. Funny thing is that when you can’t say that prayer, your other prayers don’t seem to be answered. Every new affront and silent insult en raged me and hurt more cruelly than I’d admit. I was ashamed to admit that our private war was really my fault. For this is how it had happened: A few of Al’s acres and mine were separated by the ditch spanned by the footbridge under the oaks. For years I had noticed that this ditch slowly moved over on my land. Perhaps my margin was more sandy and eroded more quickly, I speculated the way I’d consider any cur ious fact. But what of it? What is an acre of land between friends like Al and me? Yesterday we had planted my field of corn. Today we were ■ just finishing planting Al’s. Page Ten
LTHOUGH I was certain that the ditch was way off its original course, even I wasn’t prepared for the transit verdict. Only several yards out of bounds at the footbridge, the creek angled imperceptibly away so that it was a matter of rods away at the other end of the field. The tape lay shining and con clusive on Al’s side of the ditch while Lew confirmed the line with transit shots at visible established markers described in his field notes. “What are you driving stakes in my field for?” Al demanded angrily, puffing from running across the field. “ Get off my land!” “ Take it easy, Al,” Lew advised him. “ Your land only reaches to this line of stakes.” “What are you going to do with these few feet you’re trying to take off of me?” Al sneered sarcastically. “Nothing. I only called Lew to show you that I wasn’t lying about the ditch,” I tried to explain. “ Oh, yeah? One excuse is as good as another to get an acre of ipy land. From here on you stay on your own side of the ditch!” he blazed, and strode rapidly to ward his house. “You’ll never be welcome on this side again. I felt it was a mistake to run a line between you two old friends,” Lew muttered. The crew gathered up the instruments and Lew and I walked gloomily out to the truck at the highway. I knew in my heart that I shouldn’t have done it—and yet I wouldn’t be called a liar for noth ing. “ It will total about an acre of land,” Lew said, as I paid him. “ But some acres cost more than others.” He drove off as I turned at the sound of chopping behind me. Al’s flashing ax was gouging out chips from the foot bridge at every blow. The Devil had put a gnawing bitterness between us. I stood there stunned and miserable, un able to interfere with his destruction of the dear link that had bound us. The de molished bridge was a leaping bonfire by the time that Alice came out. “ Come into the house and don’t bother him. I don’t know what has come over Al,” she worried. I went with her to the house with no more spirit than if we were coming back from a funeral. The familiar little bridge Was de stroyed. So was our friendship. ■ The water in the little creek looked darker. The mighty oak tree seemed to (Continued on Page 28) T H E K I N G ' S B U S I N E S S
“ Alice was making a freezer of ice cream. Let’s go to the house and sample it,” I invited him and we started over. “ The ditch looks awful roily from the rain,” he observed. “ Yes it does. And did you notice how it is moving over into my field? This side seems to erode faster—”
“What do you mean? The ditch is where it always was.” “ Uh'-huh. At first it was right under the middle of the bridge. Now it is way over on my side,” I pointed out reason ably. Suddenly he looked at me as a dog looks when you try to steal his bone. “ It‘s a big lie!” he growled, bristling. “ It’s a fact. Maybe I ought to put in a concrete wall to keep it in place—” “How do I know that you didn’t push the bridge over my way to make out a case? Anyone rotten enough to fight over a boundary line is crooked enough to fix it his own way—” “ Al! You can’t talk to me like that!” “Well, I’ll say what I’d say to any crook, ‘You lie!’ ” “We’ll see if I’m right or not. I’ll have it surveyed,” I promised grimly so that it sounded more like a threat. When I asked Lew Abner if he could come over in the morning to survey a boundary, he asked, “ Which boundary?” “ The one between Al and me,” I ex plained. “You sure you aren’t making a mis take?” he asked worriedly. “No. I want you to run the line first thing in the morning.”
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